Obsession
by Reina de la Noche
Summary: An anonymous soldier reflects on the aftermath. Three alternative endings to the inevitable battle.
1. Despair

I never though it would come to this.

Never believed it could.

Never believed Dumbledore would let it.

But the Headmaster – no, the late Headmaster, today – isn't here to stop it, now, yet another casualty of this horrible war. Too many deaths, too many friends and loved ones gone.

I hate Voldemort, hate what he has done to our world.

I never really knew how much I hated him until today. I never really knew what it was to hate, until today.

I always thought I hated him, but it is nothing compared to what I feel now. That is all I have left, my hate. What more is there than hate in a dying, bloodstained field that is the mirror of my soul? A shattered mirror of a shattered soul.

He was our obsession, you know.

There are many sorts of obsessions, for many sorts of purposes. Some are bright, and beautiful, and essentially good, and some only bring destruction and death.

Ours was both sorts.

It consumed us, our desire to bring down Voldemort. It consumed us, and now he is gone, and that hate is all I have left.

I am the only one left.

Our Order is gone, and I am alone.

Our Order. Dumbledore's Order. Dumbledore's Army.

They came to mean the same thing, towards the end, you know. Devoted, well-trained troops to fight the dark. No one bothered to remember which among us had been a member of that army in Hogwarts. The Order of the Phoenix was Dumbledore's Army, for even those among us who had been long gone from Hogwarts when the Army was begun. It didn't matter, in those times of war. We were comrades in arms, and that was all that counted.

And now they are gone, all of them.

They were just children, and now they are dead.

My friends and colleagues, dead.

Who is left to rebuild this wrecked world?

Is there any hope left for our world?

Any magic left at all?

Hogwarts is gone, collapsed in heaps of rubble. Azkaban is gone, torn apart from within. The Ministry buildings are gutted, St. Mungo's still smolders. Grimmauld Place is savaged; Number 4 Privet Drive and its inhabitants are no more. Diagon Alley is piles of brick and burnt wood, and Hogsmeade is still aflame. I can see the fires from the bloody desolation of this final battlefield. The Department of Mysteries – I was there when it was destroyed, when all its secrets were lost.

What an odd place – what an appropriate place for those sorts of battles. I was not there often or long, and was always preoccupied, but everything I saw of it was odd and nonsensical. That is just how the place was, I suppose. Mysterious to its core. No longer, though. Now it is exposed, laid bare to the world, but there is nothing left to be discovered, and no world to discover it.

There is nothing left anywhere, and everyone is dead.

My friends, my allies, my enemies – all dead.

And I have nothing left, nothing to live for. It consumed me, that obsession, consumed us all.

And there is nothing left, nothing to die for. They gave their lives to rid the world of Voldemort's terror, died so he would. And he has died, for good, we hoped, but they are gone and I have no hope. It seems impossible for all of them to be gone, all of them who were so full of hope.

And I am left, stuck between two separate, equal hells.

I cannot bring myself to kill myself, to cheapen their sacrifice.

I cannot bring myself to live, to face this hopeless world.

There is nothing left for me here. Anyone I knew, anyone I ever talked to, ever loved, is gone, dead.

If luck is with me, if there is any mercy left in this world, I will die here, too; leave this world that has no future in it for me.

I do not fear death; I faced death incarnate and lived.

It is tomorrow I fear, the tomorrow that comes with no hope, only desolation. I am tired of tomorrows, waiting, always waiting.

But the waiting is over, and there is nothing left to wait for.

There is no one here, no one to give me hope, a reason to live. I am alone, so alone.

I never believed in love, not until it was too late, not until there was no love left for me. There is no love, no feeling, nothing but hate.

And you cannot live forever on hate alone. Hate will sustain, but it will corrupt, wither, consume. There is no sort of true existence to be found in hate. Look at Voldemort, look at what hate did to him.

I refuse that fate for myself. Give me death, but I refuse to cling to life, to become a wraith like Voldemort became.

I do not want this world. I refuse for myself continued existence here.

This world is ruined, and so am I. I am black, twisted, corrupted by hate, down to my soul, and I refuse to keep holding on.

War is not glorious, or honorable. War is death, and killing, and destruction, and crushing innocent dreams and lives. War is terrible, and fearful, and I hate it, and I hate him for forcing it upon us. I hate myself as well, for being apart of the pain, for ending so many existences, guiltless or not.

So many died today, so many will never see the sun rise again. And for what? Is there any purpose great enough to justify the deaths of so many?

This last battlefield – blooming with the bloody flowers of death. I am covered in their perfume, blood dripping down my arm, down my face, from cuts I didn't even realize I had.

Am I dying? I am not sure.

Whose blood is this that I swim in? Another's or mine?

No one is coming for me, I know.

If I am to bleed to death, no one will come save me.

Who is left that has the time to search this reddened field for survivors? Who has space to spare for someone who does not want to live, when there are so many who wish for life so strongly? Who has the time to care for the wretched, useless soul I have become?

I cannot change, not anymore. I am stripped down to the essence of who I am, eaten by that overwhelming obsession.

Look at me now. See me for who I truly am. You who accused me of hiding myself, deceiving the world, come see now. Come if you dare, dare to look at this accursed field, this accursed soul.

Is there anyone brave enough?

Is there anyone left who would look at me and understand what it all means?

With absolute certainty, I know there is not, and perhaps there never was.

Not among my friends, or my peers, or the members of the Order. Not among my family, not ever. Not among my enemies.

I am a wild card, and no one is ever sure what to expect.

It is a family trait, I suppose, though it manifests itself in very different ways in each of us.

Not that it matters, now.

They are all dead, existing only as bloody, burnt corpses and vivid shadows of memories in my mind. Some not even that. I remember them all, of course, but not all are so recently dead as to have their bodies still lying around. Some did not die so as to leave much of a body.

I miss them all, strange as it may seem, miss the insanity that was my family. Not just my parents, my immediate family, but my cousins, aunts, uncles. Some of them I never met, but I miss them and remember them all the same.

Am I going crazy?

If there was only one person left it the world, it would be impossible for that person to be anything but sane.

I am the only one left, you know. I cannot be insane. It just doesn't work that way.

It can't.

I refuse to let the hatred consume me. I refuse to become any darker than I already have become. I refuse.


	2. Vengeance

Thanks to my wonderful beta, A Random Me. Where would I be without you?

* * *

How can the world have come to this?

How can this desolation, this hatred exist?

Shouldn't it be written somewhere, in the rules of life, that you aren't allowed to have such hatred? That there's a simple, easy penalty for illegal moves, and it's three strikes and you're out.

But people murder and people die and good doesn't always win out in the end. Crime pays, and innocents are the ones to suffer.

I hate it.

I used to believe in beauty, in love, in redemption.

I no longer believe in fairy tales.

War has twisted my childhood perceptions, shown the world that exists beneath the innocent dreams of children.

Blood and pain have shown me that there are some battles that cannot be won, that if life is a game, it is an obscene game with no rules and no end in sight.

Death has taught me that we are all mortal, that everyone dies, and in a blackened battleground, it doesn't matter whether the corpses were once friend or foe.

I hate it.

I do my best to forgive them, all those who would have fought against me, all those who would have been too eager for my death. As a child, my mother told me that she had forgiven her enemies, that I should always try to find in my heart forgiveness for my enemies. She told me forgiveness was divine, and I believed her.

I do my best to forgive them, but there is nothing in my heart but hatred for them. Hatred, and a deep desire to see them all dead, an overriding need for vengeance. While they are still free, I cannot forgive them.

When they all lie dead, perhaps then I can begin to forget their crimes, begin to clear my heart of the hatred I hold for them.

I don't think I will ever pardon Voldemort. I don't think I will ever find any measure of pity in my heart for him, even if I live a hundred years. I don't think I will ever forget any of the pain he brought if I live a thousand.

I am trying, mother, to forgive, but there is nothing for me but vengeance.

I'm sorry, mother, but my obsession has burned away all traces of the kindness you worked so hard to cultivate in my soul.

I'm sorry.

I am destined to forever fail you, mother. I could not save you from death, and I cannot save you from myself.

I'm sorry that the last words we spoke were in anger, and I'm sorry that I can never be the warrior you wanted me to be. I'm sorry that I'll never be as strong as you were, as pure, as brave.

I'm sorry.

Would it have been different, without the war? Could I have ever been the child you wanted? Without the war, would we have fought so constantly, argued over every little difference, disappointed each other so many times? Without the war, could we have had a real family?

It's hard for me not to dwell on the could-have-beens, the should-have-beens, the what-ifs. It's hard to remember that every event can trace its cause back to another event, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

It's hard to remember that sometimes you don't have a choice, but it's even harder to remember that sometimes you do get to choose, and sometimes you choose wrongly.

It's hard to remember that it's not always someone's fault.

It's easy to blame the war entirely on Voldemort. Easy to relegate to his tomb the guilt for so many deaths. It's too easy, and what shame I still posses will not allow me to give him all the blame.

It rankles me, that I cannot give up that inbred sense of responsibility, cannot rid myself entirely of the guilt for a war that I know logically is his alone.

I know logically that this destruction is his, and I hate him for it, but I cannot wash away the taint of my own blame, and I hate myself for it.

Just the thought of him conjures within me powerful stirrings, anger and pain and vengeance. Even in death, he owes me still for all the blood and tears I shed at his account, for all the wounds I bear because of him.

I hate him.

Hate him with the fire of a thousand dying phoenixes.

It is an ironic metaphor, in so many ways. Life, though, is ironic. I am learning to hate that as well, the world's talent for cruel contradictions.

It makes me sick, some days, to see it all. To have to watch, as good is punished and evil let go free.

I fought it. Didn't you see me trying? Trying isn't good enough anymore, though, is it? Trying won't move mountains, trying won't drain oceans, trying won't bring back the dead.

I tried to fight, but in the end it was mostly for naught. In the end, my friends are still dead, my foes are still free, and there is a dark shadow looming in my heart.

In the end, there is only pain.

What's left, but to fight? What's left, but to hunt and catch and kill and die?

There's nothing left. Nothing but pain and hatred left in this bloodstained world, in this makeshift hospital overflowing with death and destruction.

They tell me I'm lucky to be here, how fortunate I am to be alive.

If this is fortune, I don't want any of it.

If this is luck, I wish I could give it up, give it to those who really deserved it.

I used to believe in fairy tales. Stories where good triumphed over evil, where the hero got the girl, where people were courageous and brave, and there was no question of who was good and who was evil.

I don't believe in happily ever after any more.

How can I, when so many of my friends and colleagues and peers are wounded, dying, dead? How can I, when so many of the enemy still roam free? How can I, when any distinction between ally and foe is blurred and unreliable?

Our hero is dead, too many fields watered with blood, and there is no triumph for anyone.

A battle was won, but the war continues. For as long as humans inhabit this earth, the struggle will not end.

And I hate it.

I long to renounce my claim to fight this battle, long to give up allegiance to any army, but it is futile, and something within me keeps me from it.

Even the innocent do not escape, and I would rather stand and fight and die in battle than to perish in the blood slopping over the sides. I would rather give in to the vengeful urges than to let them throttle me in my sleep.

There is a crushing grip tightening itself around my heart, squeezing until I bleed. It shocks me sometimes, to look down and see no red flower blossoming on the pale breast of my hospital gown.

It is worse to bleed within.

There is no more blood on my sheets, no more bandages confining my body. I'm healed, they tell me, but there are holes in my heart that will never heal, and they hurt more than any physical wound ever could. They burn constantly, and the fire will never subside. I will never be free of those holes, if release is even what I want.

That's what hate does to a person. It inhabits you, possesses you, seduces you with its power. It's a passion, an obsession, though at first you don't recognize it for what it is.

It begins as a quiet anger, a jealousy, a frustration. It's a desire for revenge that goes unnoticed in the chaos, festering and burning. It lodges deep in your chest, grows and grows, a metaphorical cancer of the soul.

It's an affliction that's all too often fatal, and there's no guaranteed cure.

You know the risk, venturing into a quest such as ours, but it's hard to believe, as it always is, that you'll fall subject to the curse. You are so convinced of the goodness of your mission that it seems impossible for you to be consumed with the same fire you fight. You forget that between black and white are infinite shades of gray, and in that overlooked spectrum you are lost.

Eventually it comes the point when you have no choice but to recognize that blemish growing within you, but even then you dismiss it for less than it is. You do not believe that the hatred can touch you, because you strive only for good.

But finally you must admit that the quest has become an obsession, your mission of good is propelled by fierce hatred, and still you cannot rid yourself of the dark stain on the purity of your hunt.

You know you should fight the compulsion, but vengeance is sweet, and you grow addicted to the taste. Vindication is intoxicating, and your obsession grows with each stinging blow and successful counterstrike.

You forget sometimes, in the madness, what it is you are striving for. All you know is the need to hunt, to catch, to kill. The need to chase down every last foe and ensure that they never see the sun again.

I grew to know, towards the end, the identity of every Death Eater by just their attitude and posture. I was more familiar with my enemy than my allies.

All their information is filed neatly somewhere in my head: which are dead, which incarcerated, which still on the loose. I remember the crimes of each, their history, their lives. It amazes me sometimes, the facts I can still recall upon demand.

But that's what obsession does to you, driving all other thoughts and memories to the mustier corners of your head. It creates an insatiable black hole, absorbing whatever information you can find regarding the subject of your dark infatuation.

They feed me still, here. They have an awe, a respect, for the battle's survivors. I insist they tell me everything that is known of the Death Eaters, and every time another is caught, or another escapes, I know. I know who they kill, who they torture, who they are captured by. The knowledge only fans the fire inside me.

I will be released in only a few days' time, able to return to work in just a few weeks. I cannot wait, to be able again to pursue those who are responsible for the deaths of so many. I hate them all, and it is only a matter of time until I am free to bring them to justice.

I was one of the best, before the last battle and the wound it betrothed to me. I was motivated, clever, strong. I was vengeful, and revenge is a powerful incentive. Vindication is worth more than any amount of riches or fame, more moving than even fear.

I chased them down, time after time, brought them to face the consequences of their actions, watched as incompetence unleashed them back on an unsuspecting world. Went after them again, caught them, and said nothing when they once again escaped liability for their crimes.

Death Eaters learned to fear me.

They will fear me again, and this time there will be no evasion of justice, no endless cycle of release and recapture. This time they will answer for their crimes, and none of them will escape. They will pay, for once and for all.

They deserve death, all of them. Death, and nothing more, nothing less.

Death, because to do to them what they did to the world would be to acknowledge, for once and for all, that there is no good and no evil.

Death, because they deserve no more mercy than that they showed their victims.

Death, because I hate them.

Death, because vengeance is sweet.

* * *

All right, people. There's going to be one more segment in this series, and I want to know: do you want to find out who the character is? At the moment, I'm hovering between telling and not, so I need your comments. 


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